By Paula Day

“CQ.” “QSL” “73.”

No, these are not messages from outer space. They’re just a ham radio operator’s shorthand for some basic communication: “Seeking you,” “Yes, I understand,” and even, “Have a good day.”

Students in an elective course at Our Lady of the Assumption School are brushing up on such jargon, practicing their Morse code skills and studying basic electronics. They hope to pass the first level test and become FCC-licensed amateur shortwave radio operators.

The class is the brainchild of Charamie Baxter, herself a licensed ham radio operator and teacher of social studies and literature at the Atlanta Catholic school. Twenty-one sixth- seventh- and eighth-grade students meet for 45 minutes twice a week and learn the fundamentals of shortwave radio.

Recently all students in the three upper grades participated in Amateur Radio Day. Ham operators Mark Coleman, Jim Petrie and Jim Stafford of Telephone Pioneers of America arrived April 29 in a van equipped with antennas, computers, televisions and shortwave radios to give students “ears-on” experience.

On a rotating basis, students spent classroom time learning that radio waves travel through the ionosphere and can be bounced off satellites, and then went to the van and made contact with ham operators in other parts of the county, exchanging weather information and other tidbits.

Miss Baxter, an OLA, St. Pius X High School and Auburn University graduate, is known as KC4FRI in the ham operator world, an identification unique to her. Her father, who served as a radio operator in Vietnam, interested her in amateur radio as a hobby. She received her license in 1988.

The donated equipment in the school is “sufficient but not great,” Miss Baxter said. She installed the antenna on the school’s roof herself. If the classes grow she hopes to replace this equipment with gear having higher frequency, wider range and capable of transmitting as well as receiving signals.

Kelly Coleman, and eighth-grade member of the amateur radio course, has been interested in becoming a ham operator since she was in the fourth grade and is the daughter of one of the men on the Telephone Pioneers of America team who visits OLA.

Largely self-taught, Kelly said her father helps her with Morse code. She likes the class because she finds it easier to share with those who have similar interests.

“I like (being an amateur radio operator) because I can make friends all over the world, learn about other people. It’s an easy way to make friends.”

“It’s easier to know a person,” she reflected, “because one isn’t distracted by appearances. The inside of a person tells you who they really are.”

Kelly pointed out the value of shortwave radio in recent natural disasters when affected people were able to transmit and receive information when other means of communication were down.

Joe Hooper, a seventh-grade student, became interested in the class because “It’s so easy to talk to somebody so far away. It doesn’t take something big to be able to do this. Hams really go all over the world. The class has introduced me to a whole new concept.”

Jim Stafford, who heads the team visiting schools for Telephone Pioneers, said members volunteer to teach the young people about amateur radio on their own time. Being a ham operator is a “scientific hobby” that touches many disciplines, according to Stafford, including geography, physics, mathematics and the social sciences.

“We see a tremendous amount of excitement about science and technology and many (students) show a long term interest in these areas” as a result of what began as a hobby. Stafford likes to describe the team’s work as making schools “radio active.” The team has visited 10 schools in the past two years.

The van used by the team was given to the ham operators by AT&T for use at schools and in emergencies such as natural disasters. It is equipped with an independent generator and so doesn’t need an outside source of power.

Anyone interested in a visit from the team may contact Stafford at 529-8894.